To my credit

I think my eyes have trained themeslves to ignore banner adverts. Any animated oblong bar is ignored. It is as if I have a blind spot. It was therefore quite improbable that I noticed (only just, mind) the advert on FaceBook for a free credit report, courtesy of Would you beleive it was via F that I discovered the Credit Expert website.

Some banner adverts do yield useful information, it seems. I was surprised to discover the amount of information that a company can gather on you if it wishes. They do need a fair amount of information from you – date of birth, name and address, which more than I would normally give to a website for any other kind of service – but it is still surprising how much information those standard details will yeild. The exact amount of my mortgage and monthly payment is in there, as is (amusingly) a store card which I signed up for a few years ago, and forgot I even had.

Quite interesting, was the presence of The Camelot Group, who run the National Lottery, on the list of people who have seen part of the report. I signed up to their site a few months ago in order to buy a lucky dip ticket worth £1. I was indignant that they should see this as an excuse to ruffle through my records… but I suppose gambling sites are a prime place to launder money. I could load up my account with thousands of pounds of drug money, then deposit it back into a different account as ‘winnings’.

Most satisfying, however, is the fact that the credit report missed off an entire bank account in my name that I used in my student days. If ever I am on the run from the cops, perhaps for refusing to carry an ID card, or perhaps for laundering money through the lottery website, then I’ll know which account to use as a springboard for my series of Robin Hood style adventures.

4 Replies to “To my credit”

Rob – I can’t beleive that someone of your evident erudition and liberal left politics would buy a lottery ticket. Is it on the basis that it now gives support only to projects which serve the fabled “representative cross section of society” (although how that applies to the Royal Opera House I will never know) or are you just trying to get rich quick ?